Thursday, 7 August 2014

Nuclear weapon test Mike (yield 10.4 Mt) on Enewetak
Atoll. The test was part of Operation Ivy. Mike was the first hydrogen
bomb ever tested, an experimental device not suitable for use as a
weapon: photo by Federal Government of the United States, 1
November 1952, 07:14 (National Security Administration Nevada Site
Office Photo Library)

Stumbling across street
cane fumble

historical recollection collapse

What's your problem?
Why can't you just relax
enjoy the sunset

or was it sunrisethe red sunover the black seathe apocalypseif it comes

could it be becauseyou were brought upwith your cowlicked littleMick headcowering under a school desk
in nun supervised rehearsals

"Fallout shelter built by Louis Severance adjacent
to his home near Akron, Michigan includes a special ventilation and escape hatch,
an entrance to his basement, tiny kitchen, running water, sanitary facilities,
and a sleeping and living area for the family of four. The shelter cost about
$1,000. It has a 10-inch reinforced concrete ceiling with thick earth cover
and concrete walls. Severance says, 'Ever since I was convinced what damage
H-Bombs can do, I've wanted to build the shelter. Just as with my chicken farm,
when there's a need I build it.": photographer unknown, c. 1960 (National Archives and Records Administration,
Records of the Defense Civil Preparedness Agency

Total war -- Does it not have material and spiritual
evil as its consequences?

Red sunrise over the Black Sea: photo by Moise Nicu, 2009

Hiroshima -- August 6th, 1945:Father John A. Siemes, Professor of Modern Philosophy, Catholic University of Tokyo

Up to August 6th, occasional bombs, which did no great damage, had
fallen on Hiroshima. Many cities roundabout, one after the other, were
destroyed, but Hiroshima itself remained protected. There were almost
daily observation planes over the city but none of them dropped a bomb.
The citizens wondered why they alone had remained undisturbed for so
long a time. There were fantastic rumors that the enemy had something
special in mind for this city, but no one dreamed that the end would
come in such a fashion as on the morning of August 6th.

August 6th began in a bright, clear, summer morning. About seven
o'clock, there was an air raid alarm which we had heard almost every day
and a few planes appeared over the city. No one paid any attention and
at about eight o'clock, the all-clear was sounded. I am sitting in my
room at the Novitiate of the Society of Jesus in Nagatsuke; during the
past half year, the philosophical and theological section of our Mission
had been evacuated to this place from Tokyo. The Novitiate is situated
approximately two kilometers from Hiroshima, half-way up the sides of a
broad valley which stretches from the town at sea level into this
mountainous hinterland, and through which courses a river. From my
window, I have a wonderful view down the valley to the edge of the city.

Suddenly -- the time is approximately 8:14 -- the whole valley is filled
by a garish light which resembles the magnesium light used in
photography, and I am conscious of a wave of heat. I jump to the window
to find out the cause of this remarkable phenomenon, but I see nothing
more than that brilliant yellow light. As I make for the door, it
doesn't occur to me that the light might have something to do with enemy
planes. On the way from the window, I hear a moderately loud explosion
which seems to come from a distance and, at the same time, the windows
are broken in with a loud crash. There has been an interval of perhaps
ten seconds since the flash of light. I am sprayed by fragments of
glass. The entire window frame has been forced into the room. I realize
now that a bomb has burst and I am under the impression that it exploded
directly over our house or in the immediate vicinity.

I am bleeding from cuts about the hands and head. I attempt to get
out of the door. It has been forced outwards by the air pressure and has
become jammed. I force an opening in the door by means of repeated
blows with my hands and feet and come to a broad hallway from which open
the various rooms. Everything is in a state of confusion. All windows
are broken and all the doors are forced inwards. The bookshelves in the
hallway have tumbled down. I do not note a second explosion and the
fliers seem to have gone on. Most of my colleagues have been injured by
fragments of glass. A few are bleeding but none has been seriously
injured. All of us have been fortunate since it is now apparent that the
wall of my room opposite the window has been lacerated by long
fragments of glass.

Crossroads ABLE Test. The ABLE test in 1946 was an air drop of the same Fatman-type weapon dropped on Nagasaki.

We proceed to the front of the house to see where the bomb has
landed. There is no evidence, however, of a bomb crater; but the
southeast section of the house is very severely damaged. Not a door nor a
window remains. The blast of air had penetrated the entire house from
the southeast, but the house still stands. It is constructed in a
Japanese style with a wooden framework, but has been greatly
strengthened by the labor of our Brother Gropper as is frequently done
in Japanese homes. Only along the front of the chapel which adjoins the
house, three supports have given way (it has been made in the manner of
Japanese temple, entirely out of wood.)

Down in the valley, perhaps one kilometer toward the city from us,
several peasant homes are on fire and the woods on the opposite side of
the valley are aflame. A few of us go over to help control the flames.
While we are attempting to put things in order, a storm comes up and it
begins to rain. Over the city, clouds of smoke are rising and I hear a
few slight explosions. I come to the conclusion that an incendiary bomb
with an especially strong explosive action has gone off down in the
valley. A few of us saw three planes at great altitude over the city at
the time of the explosion. I, myself, saw no aircraft whatsoever.

Perhaps a half-hour after the explosion, a procession of people
begins to stream up the valley from the city. The crowd thickens
continuously. A few come up the road to our house. We give them first
aid and bring them into the chapel, which we have in the meantime
cleaned and cleared of wreckage, and put them to rest on the straw mats
which constitute the floor of Japanese houses. A few display horrible
wounds of the extremities and back. The small quantity of fat which we
possessed during this time of war was soon used up in the care of the
burns. Father Rektor who, before taking holy orders, had studied
medicine, ministers to the injured, but our bandages and drugs are soon
gone. We must be content with cleansing the wounds.

More and more of the injured come to us. The least injured drag the
more seriously wounded. There are wounded soldiers, and mothers carrying
burned children in their arms. From the houses of the farmers in the
valley comes word: "Our houses are full of wounded and dying. Can you
help, at least by taking the worst cases?" The wounded come from the
sections at the edge of the city. They saw the bright light, their
houses collapsed and buried the inmates in their rooms. Those that were
in the open suffered instantaneous burns, particularly on the lightly
clothed or unclothed parts of the body. Numerous fires sprang up which
soon consumed the entire district. We now conclude that the epicenter of
the explosion was at the edge of the city near the Jokogawa Station,
three kilometers away from us. We are concerned about Father Kopp who
that same morning, went to hold Mass at the Sisters of the Poor, who
have a home for children at the edge of the city. He had not returned as
yet.

Crossroads BAKER Test. The BAKER test in 1946 was a Fatman-type weapon detonated 96 feet below the surface of the
ocean.

Toward noon, our large chapel and library are filled with the
seriously injured. The procession of refugees from the city continues.
Finally, about one o'clock, Father Kopp returns, together with the
Sisters. Their house and the entire district where they live has burned
to the ground. Father Kopp is bleeding about the head and neck, and he
has a large burn on the right palm. He was standing in front of the
nunnery ready to go home. All of a sudden, he became aware of the light,
felt the wave of heat and a large blister formed on his hand. The
windows were torn out by the blast. He thought that the bomb had fallen
in his immediate vicinity. The nunnery, also a wooden structure made by
our Brother Gropper, still remained but soon it is noted that the house
is as good as lost because the fire, which had begun at many points in
the neighborhood, sweeps closer and closer, and water is not available.
There is still time to rescue certain things from the house and to bury
them in an open spot. Then the house is swept by flame, and they fight
their way back to us along the shore of the river and through the
burning streets.

Soon comes news that the entire city has been destroyed by the
explosion and that it is on fire. What became of Father Superior and the
three other Fathers who were at the center of the city at the Central
Mission and Parish House? We had up to this time not given them a
thought because we did not believe that the effects of the bomb
encompassed the entire city. Also, we did not want to go into town
except under pressure of dire necessity, because we thought that the
population was greatly perturbed and that it might take revenge on any
foreigners which they might consider spiteful onlookers of their
misfortune, or even spies.

Father Stolte and Father Erlinghagen go down to the road which is
still full of refugees and bring in the seriously injured who have
sunken by the wayside, to the temporary aid station at the village
school. There iodine is applied to the wounds but they are left
uncleansed. Neither ointments nor other therapeutic agents are
available. Those that have been brought in are laid on the floor and no
one can give them any further care. What could one do when all means are
lacking? Under those circumstances, it is almost useless to bring them
in. Among the passersby, there are many who are uninjured. In a
purposeless, insensate manner, distraught by the magnitude of the
disaster most of them rush by and none conceives the thought of
organizing help on his own initiative. They are concerned only with the
welfare of their own families. It became clear to us during these days
that the Japanese displayed little initiative, preparedness, and
organizational skill in preparation for catastrophes. They failed to
carry out any rescue work when something could have been saved by a
cooperative effort, and fatalistically let the catastrophe take its
course. When we urged them to take part in the rescue work, they did
everything willingly, but on their own initiative they did very little.

At about four o'clock in the afternoon, a theology student and two
kindergarten children, who lived at the Parish House and adjoining
buildings which had burned down, came in and said that Father Superior
LaSalle and Father Schiffer had been seriously injured and that they had
taken refuge in Asano Park on the river bank. It is obvious that we
must bring them in since they are too weak to come here on foot.

Buster-Jangle Test. One of the test detonations from the
Buster-Jangle series in Nevada.

Hurriedly, we get together two stretchers and seven of us rush toward
the city. Father Rektor comes along with food and medicine. The closer
we get to the city, the greater is the evidence of destruction and the
more difficult it is to make our way. The houses at the edge of the city
are all severely damaged. Many have collapsed or burned down. Further
in, almost all of the dwellings have been damaged by fire. Where the
city stood, there is a gigantic burned-out scar. We make our way along
the street on the river bank among the burning and smoking ruins. Twice
we are forced into the river itself by the heat and smoke at the level
of the street.

Frightfully burned people beckon to us. Along the way, there are many
dead and dying. On the Misasi Bridge, which leads into the inner city
we are met by a long procession of soldiers who have suffered burns.
They drag themselves along with the help of staves or are carried by
their less severely injured comrades...an endless procession of the
unfortunate.

Abandoned on the bridge, there stand with sunken heads a number of
horses with large burns on their flanks. On the far side, the cement
structure of the local hospital is the only building that remains
standing. Its interior, however, has been burned out. It acts as a
landmark to guide us on our way.

Finally we reach the entrance of the park. A large proportion of the
populace has taken refuge there, but even the trees of the park are on
fire in several places. Paths and bridges are blocked by the trunks of
fallen trees and are almost impassable. We are told that a high wind,
which may well have resulted from the heat of the burning city, has
uprooted the large trees. It is now quite dark. Only the fires, which
are still raging in some places at a distance, give out a little light.

Tumbler-Snapper DOG. Tumbler-Snapper DOG was a 20 kiloton airdrop detonated on May 1,
1952. Army and Marine troops participated in four of the eight
Tumbler-Snapper shots.

At the far corner of the park, on the river bank itself, we at last
come upon our colleagues. Father Schiffer is on the ground pale as a
ghost. He has a deep incised wound behind the ear and has lost so much
blood that we are concerned about his chances for survival. The Father
Superior has suffered a deep wound of the lower leg. Father Cieslik and
Father Kleinsorge have minor injuries but are completely exhausted.

While they are eating the food that we have brought along, they tell
us of their experiences. They were in their rooms at the Parish
House -- it was a quarter after eight, exactly the time when we had heard
the explosion in Nagatsuke -- when came the intense light and immediately
thereafter the sound of breaking windows, walls and furniture. They were
showered with glass splinters and fragments of wreckage. Father
Schiffer was buried beneath a portion of a wall and suffered a severe
head injury. The Father Superior received most of the splinters in his
back and lower extremity from which he bled copiously. Everything was
thrown about in the rooms themselves, but the wooden framework of the
house remained intact. The solidity of the structure which was the work
of Brother Gropper again shone forth.

They had the same impression that we had in Nagatsuke: that the bomb
had burst in their immediate vicinity. The Church, school, and all
buildings in the immediate vicinity collapsed at once. Beneath the ruins
of the school, the children cried for help. They were freed with great
effort. Several others were also rescued from the ruins of nearby
dwellings. Even the Father Superior and Father Schiffer despite their
wounds, rendered aid to others and lost a great deal of blood in the
process.

In the meantime, fires which had begun some distance away are raging
even closer, so that it becomes obvious that everything would soon burn
down. Several objects are rescued from the Parish House and were buried
in a clearing in front of the Church, but certain valuables and
necessities which had been kept ready in case of fire could not be found
on account of the confusion which had been wrought. It is high time to
flee, since the oncoming flames leave almost no way open. Fukai, the
secretary of the Mission, is completely out of his mind. He does not
want to leave the house and explains that he does not want to survive
the destruction of his fatherland. He is completely uninjured. Father
Kleinsorge drags him out of the house on his back and he is forcefully
carried away.

Ivy MIKE, slow-motion closeup of fireball. The Ivy MIKE shot was the first U.S. thermonuclear test using the
Teller-Ulam radiation-implosion principle. It used liquid deuterium as
the fusion fuel and yielded 10.7 megatons. The fireball reached a
diameter of 3.5 miles.

Beneath the wreckage of the houses along the way, many have been
trapped and they scream to be rescued from the oncoming flames. They
must be left to their fate. The way to the place in the city to which
one desires to flee is no longer open and one must make for Asano Park.
Fukai does not want to go further and remains behind. He has not been
heard from since. In the park, we take refuge on the bank of the river. A
very violent whirlwind now begins to uproot large trees, and lifts them
high into the air. As it reaches the water, a waterspout forms which is
approximately 100 meters high. The violence of the storm luckily passes
us by. Some distance away, however, where numerous refugees have taken
shelter, many are blown into the river. Almost all who are in the
vicinity have been injured and have lost relatives who have been pinned
under the wreckage or who have been lost sight of during the flight.
There is no help for the wounded and some die. No one pays any attention
to a dead man lying nearby.

The transportation of our own wounded is difficult. It is not
possible to dress their wounds properly in the darkness, and they bleed
again upon slight motion. As we carry them on the shaky litters in the
dark over fallen trees of the park, they suffer unbearable pain as the
result of the movement, and lose dangerously large quantities of blood.
Our rescuing angel in this difficult situation is a Japanese Protestant
pastor. He has brought up a boat and offers to take our wounded up
stream to a place where progress is easier. First, we lower the litter
containing Father Schiffer into the boat and two of us accompany him. We
plan to bring the boat back for the Father Superior. The boat returns
about one-half hour later and the pastor requests that several of us
help in the rescue of two children whom he had seen in the river. We
rescue them. They have severe burns. Soon they suffer chills and die in
the park.

The Father Superior is conveyed in the boat in the same manner as
Father Schiffer. The theology student and myself accompany him. Father
Cieslik considers himself strong enough to make his way on foot to
Nagatsuke with the rest of us, but Father Kleinsorge cannot walk so far
and we leave him behind and promise to come for him and the housekeeper
tomorrow. From the other side of the stream comes the whinny of horses
who are threatened by the fire. We land on a sand spit which juts out
from the shore. It is full of wounded who have taken refuge there. They
scream for aid for they are afraid of drowning as the river may rise
with the sea, and cover the sand spit. They themselves are too weak to
move. However, we must press on and finally we reach the spot where the
group containing Father Schiffer is waiting.

Here a rescue party had brought a large case of fresh rice cakes but
there is no one to distribute them to the numerous wounded that lie all
about. We distribute them to those that are nearby and also help
ourselves. The wounded call for water and we come to the aid of a few.
Cries for help are heard from a distance, but we cannot approach the
ruins from which they come. A group of soldiers comes along the road and
their officer notices that we speak a strange language. He at once
draws his sword, screamingly demands who we are and threatens to cut us
down. Father Laures, Jr., seizes his arm and explains that we are
German. We finally quiet him down. He thought that we might well be
Americans who had parachuted down. Rumors of parachutists were being
bandied about the city. The Father Superior who was clothed only in a
shirt and trousers, complains of feeling freezing cold, despite the warm
summer night and the heat of the burning city. The one man among us who
possesses a coat gives it to him and, in addition, I give him my own
shirt. To me, it seems more comfortable to be without a shirt in the
heat.

Ivy MIKE distant fireball and cloud. This clip shows a real-time view of MIKE from a safe distance.

In the meantime, it has become midnight. Since there are not enough
of us to man both litters with four strong bearers, we determine to
remove Father Schiffer first to the outskirts of the city. From there,
another group of bearers is to take over to Nagatsuke; the others are to
turn back in order to rescue the Father Superior. I am one of the
bearers. The theology student goes in front to warn us of the numerous
wires, beams and fragments of ruins which block the way and which are
impossible to see in the dark. Despite all precautions, our progress is
stumbling and our feet get tangled in the wire. Father Kruer falls and
carries the litter with him. Father Schiffer becomes half unconscious
from the fall and vomits. We pass an injured man who sits all alone
among the hot ruins and whom I had seen previously on the way down.

On the Misasa Bridge, we meet Father Tappe and Father Luhmer, who
have come to meet us from Nagatsuke. They had dug a family out of the
ruins of their collapsed house some fifty meters off the road. The
father of the family was already dead. They had dragged out two girls
and placed them by the side of the road. Their mother was still trapped
under some beams. They had planned to complete the rescue and then to
press on to meet us. At the outskirts of the city, we put down the
litter and leave two men to wait until those who are to come from
Nagatsuke appear. The rest of us turn back to fetch the Father Superior.

Most of the ruins have now burned down. The darkness kindly hides the
many forms that lie on the ground. Only occasionally in our quick
progress do we hear calls for help. One of us remarks that the
remarkable burned smell reminds him of incinerated corpses. The upright,
squatting form which we had passed by previously is still there.

Transportation on the litter, which has been constructed out of
boards, must be very painful to the Father Superior, whose entire back
is full of fragments of glass. In a narrow passage at the edge of town, a
car forces us to the edge of the road. The litter bearers on the left
side fall into a two meter deep ditch which they could not see in the
darkness. Father Superior hides his pain with a dry joke, but the litter
which is now no longer in one piece cannot be carried further. We
decide to wait until Kinjo can bring a hand cart from Nagatsuke. He soon
comes back with one that he has requisitioned from a collapsed house.
We place Father Superior on the cart and wheel him the rest of the way,
avoiding as much as possible the deeper pits in the road.

Ivy
MIKE, later cloud stage. The MIKE cloud eventually rose to a height of
20 miles (into the stratosphere) and spread out to a width of 100 miles.

About half past four in the morning, we finally arrive at the
Novitiate. Our rescue expedition had taken almost twelve hours.
Normally, one could go back and forth to the city in two hours. Our two
wounded were now, for the first time, properly dressed. I get two hours
sleep on the floor; some one else has taken my own bed. Then I read a
Mass in gratiarum actionem, it is the 7th of August, the anniversary of
the foundation of our society. Then we bestir ourselves to bring Father
Kleinsorge and other acquaintances out of the city.

We take off again with the hand cart. The bright day now reveals the
frightful picture which last night's darkness had partly concealed.
Where the city stood everything, as far as the eye could reach, is a
waste of ashes and ruin. Only several skeletons of buildings completely
burned out in the interior remain. The banks of the river are covered
with dead and wounded, and the rising waters have here and there covered
some of the corpses. On the broad street in the Hakushima district,
naked burned cadavers are particularly numerous. Among them are the
wounded who are still alive. A few have crawled under the burnt-out
autos and trams. Frightfully injured forms beckon to us and then
collapse. An old woman and a girl whom she is pulling along with her
fall down at our feet. We place them on our cart and wheel them to the
hospital at whose entrance a dressing station has been set up. Here the
wounded lie on the hard floor, row on row. Only the largest wounds are
dressed. We convey another soldier and an old woman to the place but we
cannot move everybody who lies exposed in the sun. It would be endless
and it is questionable whether those whom we can drag to the dressing
station can come out alive, because even here nothing really effective
can be done. Later, we ascertain that the wounded lay for days in the
burnt-out hallways of the hospital and there they died.

We must proceed to our goal in the park and are forced to leave the
wounded to their fate. We make our way to the place where our church
stood to dig up those few belongings that we had buried yesterday. We
find them intact. Everything else has been completely burned. In the
ruins, we find a few molten remnants of holy vessels. At the park, we
load the housekeeper and a mother with her two children on the cart.
Father Kleinsorge feels strong enough, with the aid of Brother Nobuhara,
to make his way home on foot. The way back takes us once again past the
dead and wounded in Hakushima. Again no rescue parties are in evidence.
At the Misasa Bridge, there still lies the family which the Fathers
Tappe and Luhmer had yesterday rescued from the ruins. A piece of tin
had been placed over them to shield them from the sun. We cannot take
them along for our cart is full. We give them and those nearby water to
drink and decide to rescue them later. At three o'clock in the
afternoon, we are back in Nagatsuka.

After we have had a few swallows and a little food, Fathers Stolte,
Luhmer, Erlinghagen and myself, take off once again to bring in the
family. Father Kleinsorge requests that we also rescue two children who
had lost their mother and who had lain near him in the park. On the way,
we were greeted by strangers who had noted that we were on a mission of
mercy and who praised our efforts. We now met groups of individuals who
were carrying the wounded about on litters. As we arrived at the Misasa
Bridge, the family that had been there was gone. They might well have
been borne away in the meantime. There was a group of soldiers at work
taking away those that had been sacrificed yesterday.

Ivy KING detonation. Ivy KING was an air-drop of the "Super-Oralloy" all-fission bomb, with a yield of 500 kilotons.

More than thirty hours had gone by until the first official rescue
party had appeared on the scene. We find both children and take them out
of the park: a six-year old boy who was uninjured, and a twelve-year
old girl who had been burned about the head, hands and legs, and who had
lain for thirty hours without care in the park. The left side of her
face and the left eye were completely covered with blood and pus, so
that we thought that she had lost the eye. When the wound was later
washed, we noted that the eye was intact and that the lids had just
become stuck together. On the way home, we took another group of three
refugees with us. They first wanted to know, however, of what
nationality we were. They, too, feared that we might be Americans who
had parachuted in. When we arrived in Nagatsuka, it had just become
dark.

We took under our care fifty refugees who had lost everything. The
majority of them were wounded and not a few had dangerous burns. Father
Rektor treated the wounds as well as he could with the few medicaments
that we could, with effort, gather up. He had to confine himself in
general to cleansing the wounds of purulent material. Even those with
the smaller burns are very weak and all suffered from diarrhea. In the
farm houses in the vicinity, almost everywhere, there are also wounded.
Father Rektor made daily rounds and acted in the capacity of a
painstaking physician and was a great Samaritan. Our work was, in the
eyes of the people, a greater boost for Christianity than all our work
during the preceding long years.

Three of the severely burned in our house died within the next few
days. Suddenly the pulse and respirations ceased. It is certainly a sign
of our good care that so few died. In the official aid stations and
hospitals, a good third or half of those that had been brought in died.
They lay about there almost without care, and a very high percentage
succumbed. Everything was lacking: doctors, assistants, dressings,
drugs, etc. In an aid station at a school at a nearby village, a group
of soldiers for several days did nothing except to bring in and cremate
the dead behind the school.

During the next few days, funeral processions passed our house from
morning to night, bringing the deceased to a small valley nearby. There,
in six places, the dead were burned. People brought their own wood and
themselves did the cremation. Father Luhmer and Father Laures found a
dead man in a nearby house who had already become bloated and who
emitted a frightful odor. They brought him to this valley and
incinerated him themselves. Even late at night, the little valley was
lit up by the funeral pyres.

Castle
BRAVO test. The Castle BRAVO test on March 1, 1954, yielded 15
megatons, the
largest nuclear weapon ever detonated by the United States. By accident
the inhabited atolls of Rongelap, Rongerik and Utirik were contaminated
with fallout, as was the Japanese fishing trawler Fukuryu Maru or Lucky
Dragon. The controversy over fallout that simmered around the Nevada
Test Site erupted into international alarm.

We made systematic efforts to trace our acquaintances and the
families of the refugees whom we had sheltered. Frequently, after the
passage of several weeks, some one was found in a distant village or
hospital but of many there was no news, and these were apparently dead.
We were lucky to discover the mother of the two children whom we had
found in the park and who had been given up for dead. After three weeks,
she saw her children once again. In the great joy of the reunion were
mingled the tears for those whom we shall not see again.

The magnitude of the disaster that befell Hiroshima on August 6th was
only slowly pieced together in my mind. I lived through the catastrophe
and saw it only in flashes, which only gradually were merged to give me
a total picture. What actually happened simultaneously in the city as a
whole is as follows: As a result of the explosion of the bomb at 8:15,
almost the entire city was destroyed at a single blow. Only small
outlying districts in the southern and eastern parts of the town escaped
complete destruction. The bomb exploded over the center of the city. As
a result of the blast, the small Japanese houses in a diameter of five
kilometers, which compressed 99% of the city, collapsed or were blown
up. Those who were in the houses were buried in the ruins. Those who
were in the open sustained burns resulting from contact with the
substance or rays emitted by the bomb. Where the substance struck in
quantity, fires sprang up. These spread rapidly.

The heat which rose from the center created a whirlwind which was
effective in spreading fire throughout the whole city. Those who had
been caught beneath the ruins and who could not be freed rapidly, and
those who had been caught by the flames, became casualties. As much as
six kilometers from the center of the explosion, all houses were damaged
and many collapsed and caught fire. Even fifteen kilometers away,
windows were broken. It was rumored that the enemy fliers had spread an
explosive and incendiary material over the city and then had created the
explosion and ignition. A few maintained that they saw the planes drop a
parachute which had carried something that exploded at a height of
1,000 meters. The newspapers called the bomb an "atomic bomb" and noted
that the force of the blast had resulted from the explosion of uranium
atoms, and that gamma rays had been sent out as a result of this, but no
one knew anything for certain concerning the nature of the bomb.

How many people were a sacrifice to this bomb? Those who had lived
through the catastrophe placed the number of dead at at least 100,000.
Hiroshima had a population of 400,000. Official statistics place the
number who had died at 70,000 up to September 1st, not counting the
missing ... and 130,000 wounded, among them 43,500 severely wounded.
Estimates made by ourselves on the basis of groups known to us show that
the number of 100,000 dead is not too high. Near us there are two
barracks, in each of which forty Korean workers lived. On the day of the
explosion, they were laboring on the streets of Hiroshima. Four
returned alive to one barracks and sixteen to the other. 600 students of
the Protestant girls' school worked in a factory, from which only
thirty to forty returned. Most of the peasant families in the
neighborhood lost one or more of their members who had worked at
factories in the city. Our next door neighbor, Tamura, lost two children
and himself suffered a large wound since, as it happened, he had been
in the city on that day. The family of our reader suffered two dead,
father and son; thus a family of five members suffered at least two
losses, counting only the dead and severely wounded. There died the
Mayor, the President of the central Japan district, the Commander of the
city, a Korean prince who had been stationed in Hiroshima in the
capacity of an officer, and many other high ranking officers. Of the
professors of the University, thirty-two were killed or severely
injured. Especially hard hit were the soldiers. The Pioneer Regiment was
almost entirely wiped out. The barracks were near the center of the
explosion.

Castle ROMEO test. The Castle ROMEO test yielded 11 megatons. It was detonated from a barge in the BRAVO crater.

Thousands of wounded who died later could doubtless have been rescued
had they received proper treatment and care, but rescue work in a
catastrophe of this magnitude had not been envisioned; since the whole
city had been knocked out at a blow, everything which had been prepared
for emergency work was lost, and no preparation had been made for rescue
work in the outlying districts. Many of the wounded also died because
they had been weakened by under-nourishment and consequently lacked in
strength to recover. Those who had their normal strength and who
received good care slowly healed the burns which had been occasioned by
the bomb. There were also cases, however, whose prognosis seemed good
who died suddenly. There were also some who had only small external
wounds who died within a week or later, after an inflammation of the
pharynx and oral cavity had taken place. We thought at first that this
was the result of inhalation of the substance of the bomb. Later, a
commission established the thesis that gamma rays had been given out at
the time of the explosion, following which the internal organs had been
injured in a manner resembling that consequent upon Roentgen
irradiation. This produces a diminution in the numbers of the white
corpuscles.

Only several cases are known to me personally where individuals who
did not have external burns later died. Father Kleinsorge and Father
Cieslik, who were near the center of the explosion, but who did not
suffer burns became quite weak some fourteen days after the explosion.
Up to this time small incised wounds had healed normally, but thereafter
the wounds which were still unhealed became worse and are to date (in
September) still incompletely healed. The attending physician diagnosed
it as leucopania. There thus seems to be some truth in the statement
that the radiation had some effect on the blood. I am of the opinion,
however, that their generally undernourished and weakened condition was
partly responsible for these findings. It was noised about that the
ruins of the city emitted deadly rays and that workers who went there to
aid in the clearing died, and that the central district would be
uninhabitable for some time to come. I have my doubts as to whether such
talk is true and myself and others who worked in the ruined area for
some hours shortly after the explosion suffered no such ill effects.

None of us in those days heard a single outburst against the
Americans on the part of the Japanese, nor was there any evidence of a
vengeful spirit. The Japanese suffered this terrible blow as part of the
fortunes of war ... something to be borne without complaint. During
this, war, I have noted relatively little hatred toward the allies on
the part of the people themselves, although the press has taken occasion
to stir up such feelings. After the victories at the beginning of the
war, the enemy was rather looked down upon, but when allied offensive
gathered momentum and especially after the advent of the majestic
B-29's, the technical skill of America became an object of wonder and
admiration.

The following anecdote indicates the spirit of the Japanese: A few
days after the atomic bombing, the secretary of the University came to
us asserting that the Japanese were ready to destroy San Francisco by
means of an equally effective bomb. It is dubious that he himself
believed what he told us. He merely wanted to impress upon us foreigners
that the Japanese were capable of similar discoveries. In his
nationalistic pride, he talked himself into believing this. The Japanese
also intimated that the principle of the new bomb was a Japanese
discovery. It was only lack of raw materials, they said, which prevented
its construction. In the meantime, the Germans were said to have
carried the discovery to a further stage and were about to initiate such
bombing. The Americans were reputed to have learned the secret from the
Germans, and they had then brought the bomb to a stage of industrial
completion.

We have discussed among ourselves the ethics of the use of the bomb.
Some consider it in the same category as poison gas and were against its
use on a civil population. Others were of the view that in total war,
as carried on in Japan, there was no difference between civilians and
soldiers, and that the bomb itself was an effective force tending to end
the bloodshed, warning Japan to surrender and thus to avoid total
destruction. It seems logical to me that he who supports total war in
principle cannot complain of war against civilians. The crux of the
matter is whether total war in its present form is justifiable, even
when it serves a just purpose. Does it not have material and spiritual
evil as its consequences which far exceed whatever good that might
result? When will our moralists give us a clear answer to this question?

Fr.
John A. Siemes was a German Jesuit who had been evacuated with his
school from Tokyo to the Nagatsuke Novitiate in Hiroshima five months
before the American nuclear strike

via The Avalon Project: Documents in Law, History and Diplomacy, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School

The shadows of the parapets are imprinted on the surface of the
bridge, 2,890 feet (880 meters) south-south-west of the hypocenter.
These shadows give a clue as to the exact location of the hypocenter: photo by U. S. Army, August 1945

An
aerial view shows workers wearing protective suits and masks work at a
construction site (C) of the shore barrier to stop radioactive water
from leaking into the sea, at the tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi
nuclear power plant in Fukushima, in this photo taken by Kyodo August 9,
2013. Highly radioactive water from Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear
plant is pouring out at a rate of 300 tons a day, officials said on
Wednesday, as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe ordered the government to step
in and help in the clean-up. The revelation amounted to an
acknowledgement that plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco) has
yet to come to grips with the scale of the catastrophe, 2 1/2 years
after the plant was hit by a huge earthquake and tsunami. Tepco only
recently admitted water had leaked at all: photo by Reuters / Kyodo, 9 August 2013

Dr. Shigeru Mita: Tokyo should no longer be inhabited (16 July 2014)

Why did I leave Tokyo?
To my fellow doctors, I closed the clinic in March 2014, which had
served the community of Kodaira for more than 50 years, since my
father’s generation, and I have started a new Mita clinic in
Okayama-city on April 21. [...] It is clear that Eastern Japan and
Metropolitan Tokyo have been contaminated with radiation [...]
contamination in the east part [of Tokyo] is 1000-4000 Bq/kg and the
west part is 300-1000 Bq/kg. [...] 0.5-1.5 Bq/kg before 2011. [...]
Tokyo should no longer be inhabited [...] Contamination in Tokyo is
progressing, and further worsened by urban radiation concentration [...]
radiation levels on the riverbeds [...] in Tokyo have increased
drastically in the last 1-2 years. [...] Ever since 3.11, everybody
living in Eastern Japan including Tokyo is a victim, and everybody is
involved. [...] The keyword here is “long-term low-level internal
irradiation.” This differs greatly from medical irradiation or simple
external exposure to radiation. [...] People are truly suffering from
this utter lack of support. [...] If the power to save our citizens and
future generations exists somewhere, it [is] in the hands of individual
clinical doctors ourselves. [...] Residents of Tokyo are unfortunately
not in the position to pity the affected regions of Tohoku because they
are victims themselves. Time is running short. [...]

Dr Mita on patient symptoms since 2011:
White blood cells, especially neutrophils, are decreasing among
children [...] Patients report nosebleed, hair loss, lack of energy,
subcutaneous bleeding, visible urinary hemorrhage, skin inflammations
[...] we began to notice changes in children’s blood test results around
mid-2013 [...] Other concerns I have include symptoms reported by
general patients, such as persistent asthma and sinusitis [...] high
occurrences of rheumatic polymyalgia [...] Changes are also noticeable
in the manifestation of contagious diseases such as influenza,
hand-foot-and-mouth disease and shingles. [...]

A helicopter flies over Japan's Fukushima Daiichi No. 1 nuclear reactor, 12 March
2011. An explosion blew the roof off the the unstable reactor north of
Tokyo on Saturday, Japanese media said, raising fears of a meltdown at a
nuclear plant damaged in the massive earthquake that hit Japan: photo by Kim Kyung-Hoon / Reuters, 12 March 2011

U.S. Ambassador to Japan Caroline Kennedy wearing a yellow
helmet and a mask inspects the central control room for the Unit 1 and
Unit 2 reactors of the tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power
plant last month: photo by Toru Yamanaka / AP, May 2014

The corporate media silence on Fukushima has been deafening even
though the melted-down nuclear power plant’s seaborne radiation is now
washing up on American beaches.

Ever more radioactive water continues to pour into the Pacific.

At least three extremely volatile fuel assemblies are stuck high in
the air at Unit 4. Three years after the March 11, 2011 disaster,
nobody knows exactly where the melted cores from Units 1, 2 and 3 might
be.

Amid a dicey cleanup infiltrated by organized crime, still more massive radiation releases are a real possibility at any time.

Radioactive
groundwater washing through the complex is enough of a
problem that Fukushima Daiichi owner Tepco has just won approval for a
highly controversial ice wall
to be constructed around the crippled reactor site. No wall of this
scale and type has ever been built, and this one might not be ready for
two years. Widespread skepticism has erupted surrounding its potential
impact on the stability of the site and on the huge amounts of energy
necessary to sustain it. Critics also doubt it would effectively guard
the site from flooding and worry it could cause even more damage should
power fail.

Meanwhile, children nearby are dying. The rate of thyroid cancers
among some 250,000 area young people is more than 40 times normal.
According to health expert Joe Mangano,
more than 46 percent have precancerous nodules and cysts on their
thyroids. This is “just the beginning” of a tragic epidemic, he warns.

Harvey Wasserman: Fukushima is still a disaster, truthdig, 3 June 2014

A brilliant post, Tom, for a sad anniversary. I was too early for the duck-and-cover drills, but metal dog tags had a cachet of cool among our adolescent group. Their unacknowledged purpose was to help identify the charred corpses pulled from the schoolhouse rubble; or, if you survived, to indicate your blood type so that you could be given a transfusion of by-now irradiated blood. It was, after all, a period of optimistic fatalism.

Thanks, Hazen and Michael, and I guess this is one case in which showing your age amounts to showing your stripes, as a veteran -- that is, internally traumatised survivor of the global war machine over its many campaigns and seasons, dating all the way back to the prehistoric time when the brutality was merely senseless slaughter, not yet dressed up as a video game or fronted by quite such pseudo-sophisticated armies of paid liars as are propped in place now.

Yes, that protracted period of blind optimistic fatalism which held the carefully minimized crimes off at arm's length through routine denial and the laughably transparent sort of p.r. attempted in The Atom Strikes -- I think those must have been the good old days.

Looking into some of the records which have been disclosed, one learns that the secret super-weapon program which had been underway for some years was completely unknown to the hat salesman Truman until FDR died and somebody had to inform the new POTUS that among the toys he had inherited was this bomb program which had already cost $2 billion. You can just see Truman's eyes lighting up, like on Christmas morning back in Kansas City. His logic was, Well, since I've got it, why not use it (memos show that he also privately feared that he might be impeached if he didn't). So the air attacks on Japan were then restricted (so as to keep things clean for the nuclear experiment) in three specific areas, designated as target options: Hiroshima, Nagoya (Nagasaki seems to have been a last-minute afterthought), Kyoto; the wife of the Secretary of Defense fancied herself an appreciator of Asian cultures, and leaned on her husband to have Kyoto struck from the list of options on grounds of its status as a venerable cultural landmark. As to the generally accepted view that the nuclear strikes ended the war, that's pure myth. The Russians were about to arrive, and no Japanese who had heard anything of the news of the past few years could be unaware that surrendering to the Americans, who after dropping their super-bombs on you would come in and hand out chocolate bars (bygones, and no hard feelings) was always going to be preferable to surrendering to the Russians, who would come in, drink the booze, rape the women, and wreck everything that wasn't already wrecked.

Talking of the etiquette of occupying forces -- today there comes the revelation from Gaza as to how the IDF occupying troops ("the most moral army in the world," as the Israeli Defense Minister called them back at the beginning of this latest campaign of wanton genocide) diverted themselves while occupying the homes of those they had displaced (perhaps this pattern of conduct is codified in the Protocols, how can an outsider know): steal anything of value, destroy the rest, use the furniture as w.c., carve vicious racist hate messages into what remains of the walls and leave the place a fetid stinking ruin of death and loss. Welcome home, villager.

By the by, Ed Sanders, the outstanding peace activist among poets of our antediluvian epoch, comments, re. the comfy little family tomb (er shelter) there in Ak-Ron, Michigan, pictured in the fourth photo:

"Yeah, the Rockefeller family had plans to make billions 'pon billionsfrom fallout sheltersfor the Masses"

American philanthropy, the kindest, gentlest form of profiteering ever known.

The Proustian bon-bon box of involuntary memory has discharged a phantasmagoric recovered salvo of dismal childhood phobias instilled by all that early hiding under the school desk, tacking up the blankets over the windows, being terrified of every night siren in the constantly siren-filled night, anxiously calculating on street maps the putative distance from epicenter (never an encouraging project, as no matter how it was computed, the West Side of Chicago never stopped looking vulnerable to instant incineration, upon the outbreak of Total War -- which was presumed inevitable -- only a matter of time). As the logic of Total War rarely arrived at pacific conclusions, one important element in all such calculations, when raised to the higher plane of military strategy, was the proximity of air raid shelter to trigger finger, "defense" to "deterrence". (As for shelters, we'd heard and seen films about but never actually seen one, in fact we didn't have those, only a few hicks from the sticks would have one, and after all what was a backyard shelter going to do for a crowded urban apartment block in any case?). In this regard I found Father Siemes' testimony altogether more useful that the contributions of, for example, the "writers" who weren't there, but came in later for the career op, and this would designate a broad arc of candidates from John Hersey to Margerite Duras. When one asks oneself who Siemes was, what he may have been doing there, and above all, what was happening to him, during the Occupation, when he was being grilled at hearings like the one represented in the scary (shudder of remembrance of things past) propaganda video, The Atom Strikes. Fr Siemes, unlike the makers of that film, appears not to have been butt-stupid. His question about the morality of Total War, at the end of his piece, answers itself. But at present, of course, the morality of Total War is no longer debated, any more than the morality of the sky being up, water wet or the Earth round. Indeed it's a question seldom explored in American "thought", historically -- though now and then there once came along, back in the mythic epoch of a half century ago, the odd provocative "comic" hypothetical like this one. "Laughter blows it to rags", a poet once proposed.